Kershaw And In-Play Opportunity Cost

For those on C-LAY-Ton Kershaw watch - he's starting again this evening, with the Dodgers losing the last two of his starts, and coming from behind in the start prior to those.

The Dodgers were ~1.37 v Texas Rangers on 17th June and lost 3:5, and last time Kershaw started, they were ~1.58 @ Chicago Cubs and lost 2:4. Not that the score matters - in US Sports, it is all about Ws and Ls, as they have a rather odd aversion to Draws or Ties.

The opposing pitcher Tom Koehler is having a decent season with a career best ERA of 3.76 (compare Kershaw's 3.33) and has a 6-4 record (Kershaw 5-5) this season. Kershaw, or more importantly, the Los Angeles Dodgers may well win, but 1.37 / 1.38 is a value Lay for me. One slight concern is that Koehler missed his last start with back spasms, but he's playing, so I'll assume he is ready to go.

Robbo the trader commented on my last post on Betfair's implicit approval of court-siding with:

The problem for Betfair is that every increase in the delay puts off the average punter who believe they're not at any real disadvantage. For Betfair to survive it's all about keeping the mug money on board not trying to level the playing field, so I doubt we'll have any extensions to the bet delays if Betfair can help it.

The simple fact is if the markets were managed correctly with people at source they'd be no need for long delays as markets would be suspended when goals etc. occurred. Other options could simply be remove all delays and roll back markets to the local time-stamp minus say 5 seconds, then cancel bets after that time when a material event occurs, that would also put paid to the random suspends that continually occur just because the suspend operator has woken up. But given the costs and Betfair's aversion to maintaining the exchange that won't happen. For now Betfair's contribution to fairness is the fact they take 40-60% off the 'advantaged' players.

The steady flow of mug money in the popular sports of horse-racing, football and tennis does surprise me, but also says a lot about the unrealistic optimism of human nature. New in-trading focused blogs spring up, but not many last the distance. I'm actually not aware of any long-running legitimate in-play blogs now that Mark Iverson has departed the scene. The latest that have come to my attention are Tennis Trading and Big Pairs, and how long they last will be interesting to see. The big downside to in-play trading is the amount of time it takes.

Not to pick on Tennis Trading, but the blog started on 29th April, and a net profit of 152.76 € works out to about 2.54 € (£1.80) a day - and trading tennis matches takes a lot of time. The graphic on the left should include the number of hours invested (for most of us, our time is worth something - opportunity cost), and the average per hour included. For some, trading is a hobby and more about entertainment than the money, and that's fine, but unless you are unemployable, there are probably more lucrative ways to invest your time. While finding pre-game edges is also time consuming, you can choose when to do it and you're not tied to watching a game at a fixed time waiting for a value opportunity that most likely isn't actually value at all - which is why the 'insiders' have left it for you.  

Kershaw Update: The Dodgers lost 2:3. Happy days and hope a few of you were on too.